The Element of Surprise
by CyrusLestrange
Summary: Nobody is more surprised when Lily Evans starts to have physical reactions to James Potter that are ENTIRELY beyond her control- than Lily Evans is. His secret weapon? Indifference. (Seventh-Year-Dabble-Drabbles).
1. 1

**The Element of Surprise**

**1.**

James Potter is walking with that languid, panther-gait of his, down the corridor towards me, and something very strange is happening inside my chest.

My first thought is, _how young is the youngest-ever victim of a heart-attack? I know Dad is _forever_ moaning on about his cholesterol, and I'm always rolling my eyes, but by God! Karma has struck me down at last. Damn all that Shephards Pie, that onion gravy, that clotted cream! The Hogwarts House Elves have done it- they've killed me with nourishment at last…_

My second thought is, _No, you fool! You've been struck by an adrenaline spell! Quick, unsheathe your wand, be at the ready, there is dueling in the corridors!_

Because those are the only two fathomable reasons for the sudden pounding of my heart, the sharp flurries of nervousness that are cascading down my gut.

But the corridor is empty, and I haven't yet collapsed, so I'm left with a brain-numbing array of sudden thoughts and a tingling panic at the edges of my consciousness.

_Make a run for it_, is the _only_ sane thought amidst all the rubbish, so I listen, turning instantly and legging it down the opposite end of the corridor.

_"Evans!" _

I hear it echoing through my mind, in a hundred different tones, a hundred different timbres of excitement, but it's only an echo. The corridor behind me is silent, save for the soft, indifferent padding of his footsteps.

I make it around the bend, and into the nearest empty classroom, and the silence on my heels is deafening. There is another completely foreign sensation beginning to flow through my chest, and I think I dimly, ever-so-distantly, recognize it as bitter disappointment. I realize my hand is on the desk in front of me, as if I need to be steadied, and I'm breathing deeply, trying to calm the unknown panic in the fringes of my mind.

_Lily, what is happening to you_?

A small, disbelieving voice cuts through the whining haze, and I come-to a little.

_What _is _happening to me?_

I pull myself nimbly up onto the desk I have been gripping for the past minute, and stare at the chalkboard blankly. '_I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school. I will not use my wand for 'disgraceful rubbish', I will use it to honor my school…"_

My heart lightens the slightest bit, and a welcome smile pulls at my lips. The detention line has been written at least two-hundred times. I wonder if James Potter wrote it-

_Lily Evans. What is happening to you_.

I feel my lips tighten into a McGonagle-esque line, and I try to tear my eyes- as well as my thoughts- away from the board, but the quotations around 'disgraceful rubbish' just look _so_ inexplicably…. _sarcastic_, and all I can think of is that this has to be James' detention for turning Avery's bats into a small flock of swans last night, and all on its own, my mind conjures the image of James Potter's hands, calloused and graceful, jotting that line on the board a hundred times over, taking extra care to make those quotations look _sarcastic_-

-and that sensation starts in my chest again. As if my heart is beating in water; rippling and buoyed in some unknown currant.

And all I can do is bring my hands to my face and rub _vigorously _because- _what?!_- what am I thinking, _what_ am I doing, I am _not_ this sort of girl.

I am not someone who suddenly makes a _complete_ one-eighty and _fancies_ someone just because they are suddenly indifferent. I will _not_ be fawning over James Potter simply because he seems to have finally called it quits over the summer, and realized that his ridiculous,_ incessant_ attempts to win me over are futile.

I am someone with dignity. At least I _thought_ I was- and I will not let my ego be bruised and run rampant on me, simply because I have lost the constant flattery of his affections. _Flattery_ is not even the right word. _Irritation_, or _abomination_ would actually be more accurate, but my poor, broken brain seems to be having trouble remembering the menace that has been James Potter for the past six years.

_I am being quite as bad as him, at the moment_, I realize with a nasty shock. All these years I have accused _him_ of being self-centered, and look at me now! All hot and bothered because my faithful lap-dog is gone.

_Nonsense_. It is _nonsense_, I decide, with a firm nod of my head to the empty room. I will be _happy _for him. Maybe now, at long last, he can stop messing about with half the girls in the school, and pick one of _them_ to actually like.

I nod firmly again, but that second sensation is burning through my gut, that bitter resentment, and I am not as blind to it as I pretend to be.

I stare at the quotations on the board for a long while, wrestling with my own mind, sorting out a course of sensible action.

By the time I gather my wits and my nerves enough to leave the classroom, I realize the period is over and I, Lily Evans, have skived-off my first class ever.

* * *

_Be kind, and sensible, and leave a review. ;)_


	2. 2

**2.**

Marlene is chattering away about something either vulgar or seductive (I don't honestly think she can tell the difference) that Sirius Black said to her before Charms today, and I'm finding myself keeping my head down diligently, as if I simply _cannot_ bear to be torn away from this _fascinating _potions essay I'm scribbling away at.

It is, in fact, one of the most boring things I have ever written.

But Marlene is talking in a rush that I'm pretty sure has been caused by the mug of milky tea in her hands, and I can sense with a feeling of vague panic that her speech is swinging closer and closer to the subjects of James Potter and 'where were _you_ in Charms today, Lily?', like a searchlight closing in on a criminal hiding quivering in the shrubs just beyond the road.

My brain is filled with this new little voice, asking, _what are you doing? Why are you panicking, just because Marlene might mention James Potter's name? What's it to you?_ And my hand is slowing over the paper, because I can't think so many thoughts and write at the same time, because I just accidentally wrote _the flowers of the Jame-_ instead of _the flowers of the Jasmine_….

"Lily, did you _skip_ Charms today?" Sure enough, it comes up as I knew it would, and I look up innocently, to find Marlene smirking at me with delight.

I shrug. _Yeah_… _I ditch class all the time. No big deal. Totally cool. _"Oh… yeah. I'm just, erm- not used to being back from the summer holidays yet… trapped in the castle. Just thought I'd take a stroll through the grounds."

_Yes, because that's what you're best known for, Lily. Your love of '_strolling_ round the grounds' _outside_._

I tucked my hair behind my ears with both hands as I spoke, and I think it was a giveaway, because Marlene's smirk grows and Alice and Emmeline look over at me as well.

"You were taking a stroll," she says flatly, in a voice that clearly says, 'who are you kidding', and narrows her long-lashed eyes at me, "_you were with a boy!_"

The other girls' eyes light up, and my face betrays me and turns instantly hot, because no, I was not with a boy, I was alone in a classroom staring blankly at detention lines for an hour.

_Then why does it feel like she very nearly just struck a nerve there?_

I push that pesky, stupid little voice out of my mind, not wanting to give any more attention to these bizarre _feelings of a stranger_ that have somehow cropped up inside my own chest over the past few days. I make a mental note to look up emotional-switching spells. _Is there such a thing? Is this his most elaborate scheme yet?_

"I was not with a boy Marlene," I say in a dull sing-song, casting my eyes back onto my essay, and scribbling out the _Jame _that I have accidentally written. "I was having a moment alone."

She makes a noise of doubt, and eventually picks up her caffeine-induced chatter again. I chance a glance up, and find Alice still watching me curiously. I look away _immediately_, pretending that I heard an alarming noise behind me, because Alice knows me better than anyone, and I know she will be able to sense the fishiness in the air around me if I meet her eyes.

'Lily?' her eyes say, when I eventually look back. I grimace and shake my head. Her angelic blue gaze sweep softly over mine, and I think she _somehow_, unfathomably, _knows_ what has been bothering me, because her smile is all too understanding.

Because she was there earlier this week, on our first day as Seventh Years, when James Potter brushed past me and the rest of the Seventh Year Gryffindor girls, with nothing more than a cursory glance, and a smiled 'Ladies'.

She watched me frown after him in confusion, and quickly try and cover up the fact that I had even _noticed_ his unusually casual treatment of me.

She was there at the feast, when he and I stood to acknowledge our new positions as Head Boy and Girl, and she saw him turn to me as if just realizing his manners amongst the applause, and say a very polite, 'Hey, congratulations, Evans.'

And she was there a few minutes later, when Marlene realized how strange he was acting and exclaimed it to me with gossipy excitement. And I think she saw me blanch, shocked and puzzled at my own reaction, as I tried to fake that same gossipy interest in this silly new development in James Potter's ridiculous evolution.

And Alice was there, for the past few days, as James and I had a few more interactions, each as meaningless as the last. And she saw me realize that this was _not_ James _feigning_ indifference, as another ploy to win over my affections at last- this was a James who had somehow, over the summer, _actually_ let me, Lily Evans, go.

This was a James Potter who was now completely polite, kind, and _genuinely _indifferent.

And I think she saw this strange hollowness fall over me, as I realized that the thing that I had hoped for for _years_ had come to fruition.

And I think she saw, as she had always predicted she would, that I finally realized my mistake.

A small hand covers my wrist, the nails painted a chipping lilac color, a small silver band on her index finger. The touch makes me want to cry, and I look back up at her in utter confusion and disappointment and horror at myself.

And I can tell she sees it all.


	3. 3

**3.**

It's a Friday, and that fact alone is making me feel the same happiness that springtime often brings to bloom inside my chest.

I'm descending the spiral staircase from the Muggle Studies classroom at the leisurely pace I seem to be floating around everywhere lately, dragging a finger across the sill of the curved window that wraps around the stairs. The grounds outside are bathed in golden light, and I can see Hagrid near his hut, roughhousing with his _massive_ Tibbetan Mastiff, Leo. I smile as the dog springs to its feet and lunges at Hagrid like a great shaggy lion. My smile widens as I remember the incident at the end of last year, when James Potter and Sirius Black capitalized on Leo's likeness to a wildcat, and briefly kidnapped him to act as the Gryffindor mascot on the afternoon of the Quiddich Final.

The contentment glowing in my chest swells as I realize I only feel a nostalgic sweetness at the memory. No heart-palpitations, no oncoming panic attacks. I am back. Lily Evans is a sane girl once more.

Well. You know what I mean.

This bizarre roller-coaster of a week is drawing to a close, and I really can't help but feel foolish in its hindsight. I spent the evening alone in the dorm last night, after deciding enough was _enough_, and forced myself to buckle down to sort out my feelings. And I can see what happened now; laid out behind me like the still frames of a comic book. And while _yes_... I feel silly, I also feel incredibly _relieved_.

James Potter for whatever reason (mostly his own amusement, I think) set his bull-headed sights on me pretty much the moment he hit puberty. Before that, even, though I can't quite remember the exact moment when I started to realize that his attentions were a little more pointed than the teasings of children. And so it has been for years and years. True, the great majority of his efforts have been highly theatrical attempts to ask me out, or else incessant teasing about my lack of dating thus far, but it has been attention all the same… and I suppose _some_ part of me- a part I always tried to pretend didn't exist- enjoyed it.

And now those attentions are gone. Where I used to get a daily lift, a laugh, a chance to tell him off, I am now met with nothing; thin air. Potter and I have had _huge_ fights before (and I mean _huge_. Shouting matches in the common room- objects bursting into flame around us- McGonagle storming down in her bathrobe. Huge.). Times where we haven't spoken to each other for weeks on end. But the anger in the air between us was still _something_. There was still a constant, if silent and resentful, back and forth. A backwards confirmation that we meant enough to each other to at least constitute mutual loathing.

And if I'm being completely honest with myself, this polite emptiness, the total erasion of the six years we have known each other, feels like an unexpected and unbearable rejection.

And that is _so unfair_. _So_ unfair. Because how many times have I rejected him? With my nasty wit and fiery temper, without thinking about his feelings before I opened my mouth? Hundreds. At _least_. And the first time I get a taste of my own medicine, my whole world is rocked.

No way. I will not be that person. I will not be the brat who snaps and blunders around acting impulsively- then crumples like a victim the moment someone mirrors her actions against her.

So Potter has _finally _taken the hint that I have literally _screamed _in his face more than once? So he's become a mature human being (against _all_ odds) and has finally decided to stop barking up the willow who has whomped him at his every attempt? _Good for him_.

Yes, I became uncontrollably vulnerable at the feeling of rejection. He suddenly seemed more desirable- a respect ignited by that ranking order of dogs; the rule of 'if he disgraces you, he is the leader'. I know there is something in the most basic part of being human that makes someone who ignores you attractive. And I won't bite.

I will stick to the track I have seen without fail for six years- I will live my life, _without James Potter's intrusion_, and be the happy, _completely opposite_ personality of him that I am.

And I will let go of this ridiculous feeling of being snubbed, and be pleased that he has _finally _decided to cooperate with me!

I feel proud of myself for working this out in such a calm and timely manner, and the light pouring in through the crystal windows looks just a little bit brighter for it.

I finally manage to tear myself away from the window to continue on my way to dinner, my mind suddenly occupied with how Alice and I will spend our weekend. I am looking _so _ forward to a sleep-in tomorrow, followed of course, by a long morning of lazing about in our dorm with the rest of the girls, talking and laughing and experimenting with beauty charms.

Midway down the stairs, I can see two sources of commotion moving towards each other from opposite sides of the corridor below, like two blips on a muggle tracking device, blinking towards each other on a collision course. On the end closest to me, I hear raised voices. Two boys are jeering and laughing, their insults and laughter shouted in equal barks. A small, feminine voice is protesting quietly, in the ragged tone that comes just before tears. On the other end of the corridor comes another blend of male and female voices. However in this case, the girl is speaking in the soft lilt of flirtation, punctuated by a tinkling laugh. The male voice is bantering with her in a hyper, cocky tone that I know all too well.

The foul play moving directly below me _should_ have roused the Head Girl in me. I know it should have. I haven't been exactly living up to my duties so far. But seeing as the Head _Boy_ was already down there, and seeing as the mouth of the stairs would have deposited me _directly_ in between the two groups if I were to rush down to the rescue... something in me freezes.

Predictably, so predictably, Potter- ever heroic and noble- stills like a wolf when he notices the raised voices. That frighteningly _hungry_ look, the one that I began to notice on him at the end of last year, slides into place as his eyes narrow in disgust, fixed on whoever is at the end of the corridor. I hear him mutter a 'hold on' to the girl beside him, who I recognize as Penny Wood, and he saunters down the remaining length of the corridor, drawing his wand as he does.

"Mulciber, what the _fuck_," he says in a loud, clear voice, "are you doing?"

The other party has come into my field of vision now. It's Mulciber and a younger Slytherin boy, on the heels of a young girl, like feral dogs snapping at her ankles. She's clutching her books tightly to her chest, looking disturbed and scared, and I can hear her sniffling as quietly as she can into the sleeve of her robe. She looks up quickly at the sound of James' voice, her eyes darting between him and the Slytherins.

"Oh, we're just having a little fun," comes the unnervingly charming voice of Mulciber. He nudges the girl in a forced playful way that makes her close her eyes in fright, cringing away from his touch.

"Yeah?" James asks domineeringly, his voice full of a barely contained fight. He bends down to look the girl in the eye, and says in a much, much softer voice, "Are _you_ having _fun_?"

She gives a frightened little sob in protest, and even from where I'm standing I can see his eyes widen, his hand shoot out to rest bracingly on her back. He murmurs something in a low, sweet voice that I have _never_ heard the likes of before, and his hand on her back comes up to smooth her hair. She's tiny- only a first or second year, and I can see that her little face is torn between relief and humiliation as fresh tears begin to pour silently down her cheeks. James draws himself up, standing taller than I remember, and looks Mulciber coldly in the eye.

"Fuck off, Mulciber. Chase after a girl your own age, if you must. Personally I think you'd be much better suited to a flesh-eating-slug than a _human_ girl, but... I suppose that's beyond my reach as Head Boy."

There's a terrible moment where I'm sure, from everything I've known about James for six years, that he's going to lose control and hex Mulciber right then and there, to punctuate his disgust. I can imagine the duel that will ensue, and I realize with a heavy internal groan that it would, of course, be up to me to break up.

"Please," Mulciber sneers a horrible sneer, and there is ice in his voice, "as if I would _ever_ mess about with a Mudblood. I've got plans for girls who aren't tainted with that sort of filth. Can't be getting myself all dirty first, now can I?"

This results in a moment where I'm quite sure, that _I_ am about to lose control and hex Mulciber right then and there. The little girl is looking violated, and there is a nasty fire flowing through my blood at the sight of her face, and the sound of that muddy word. But James beats me to it.

"Go to the Headmaster's office," he says calmly, and for a moment I am stunned and a little _angry_ that he isn't flying off the handle. "Right now. I'm sending word ahead of you, so don't you dare try and downplay your level of perversion, you _sick_, prejudiced sack of scum."

It is only as he finishes his sentence that I hear that the note of calm in his tone is forced- I hear the shaking in his voice beneath it, I see his fist clenched so tightly around his wand that his knuckles are white and red.

Mulciber snorts, "I don't have to do anything you _tell _me to, Potter. Get out of my way."

It happens so fast that I swear I don't even see James move at all. He twitches, his eyes flashing, and Mulciber is doubled over, yowling, his hands cupping himself between his legs. James locks his gaze on the younger Slytherin, and his eyes speak as clearly as a voice. 'Run'. The boy turns and speeds down the corridor and out of sight.

"There, Mulciber," James says in that same eerie calm, though he's breathing fast, "how's that for dirty? Do be careful with the boils- they pop at the touch of the breeze. Now _g__o_ to the Headmaster's office. I'm sending word to Madame Pomfrey that she's not to treat you until you've spoken to the Dumbledore about your views on Muggleborns."

Mulciber shouts a string of obscenities, but staggers away all the same. James watches him until he's gone, his hand flexing on his wand as if he's coming out of a reverie. Penny Wood, who I had completely forgotten was there, approaches cautiously, and he tells her he'll see her later. She reluctantly disappears down the same end of the hallway as Mulciber- and it's just James, the young girl… and me. Watching like a frozen statue halfway down the staircase.

"Are you alright?" he asks, his voice making that impossible switch again. To tender concern. The girl tries to nod bravely, but her face crumples, and he smiles a sweetly heartsore smile at the sight. His hand cups her face gently, his palm practically the size of her head, and he tilts her chin up so she'll stop trying to hide her eyes.

"Don't ever listen to rubbish like that," he says softly. "I'm serious!" He drops his tone conspiratorially,_ that twinkle_ alight in his eyes. "Those gits are absolutely delusional, and they're just frightened because they've only ever known one world. You've known two."

The girl frowns at him dubiously and he nods enthusiastically.

"It's true," he says, "I always used to feel jealous of muggle-born students. They got to come _here_ from a whole _different_ world that I've never known anything about, really. It's the same for all of them. Voldemort, Mulciber- the whole idiotic lot. Just don't listen to it."

The girl starts a little as he says Voldemort's name, and then laughs nervously, looking around as though expecting someone to burst through the roof and smite him. He looks around theatrically as well, pulling a face of wide-eyed anticipation. The girl laughs again. He grins at her, and tousles her hair. "Off you go," he whispers, with a playful jerk of his head. She scurries away, still sniffling a little.

He watches her make it all the way down the corridor, and heaves a huge sigh when she disappears from view. His shoulders slump a little, and he runs a hand agitatedly through his hair before turning to continue on his own way down the corridor, beneath me, and out of sight.

I'm still rooted to the stairs.

There's a surging wave of feelings rising up inside of me, led most notably by a massive lump in my throat. My heart is pumping an intoxicatingly broken sensation through my veins with every beat, and I realize my mouth is frozen open, my eyes boring into the spot where James Potter was standing a moment before. I can't seem to change my expression, and I can see how I must look in my mind's eye- a portrait of raw, dumb-struck emotion.

The relief, the contentment of a few minutes before seems suddenly like a dream, and all I can hear as I stand on the deserted steps is the traces of that impossibly tender voice, still reverberating through my mind, filling hollow spaces I never even knew were there.


	4. 4

**4.**

"So… can I ask you something?"

Alice's voice is like a music box, and even though I _know_ what she's about to ask, and it annoys me, I can't help but love her and say with a smile, "Of course, Al."

It's Sunday morning. We are walking around the Great Lake, and I think we are both feeling a strange relief at being away from the chatter-filled dorm, though neither of us can really understand why. She's twirling a three-leaf clover in her small fingers, and I am scanning the ground for a four-leaf sign.

"Do you… " she pauses, frowning at the battered stem of her clover, her chin crinkling in that nut-cracker way of hers, "do you think that after knowing somebody for a long, long time… you can ever… _change_ the way they see you?"

I stop walking, but she continues her dreamy pace, so after a second I have trot to catch back up. That was _not_ what I thought she was going to say at all. But bloody hell if it wasn't exactly what was in my head…

I stare at the golden ringlets that cover back of her head, wondering if she has see-er blood in her.

"What do you… what d'you mean?" I ask cautiously. She sighs and casts her clover aside. I watch it twirl through the air and land with a soft ripple in the black waters. A sprig of green against the dark glass.

"I mean, when you've been friends with someone for ages- _years_- someone who probably just considers you a sister… do you think it's ever possible to change that? Become more?"

Slowly, the tendrils of anxiety that she has found me out begin to unwind, clearing a space for my mind to work out _what _she means. A glimmering remembrance nags at the back of my thoughts, and I frown, trying to catch hold of it.

"Hold on…" I say at length, thinking back to the letters she wrote to me over summer. The _name_ that cropped up over and over, as it has in her letters for the past six years... but in a way that was somehow… _more poignant _than it was before. "Alice! Do you mean- are you talking about- _Frank_?!"

She lets out something between a sigh and a whimper, and raises a hand to her forehead, running it across her brows gently. Then she nods.

"_ALICE!_" I exclaim, forgetting, as I do, that Alice is a gentler creature of earth, and should not be shouted at, no matter the occasion. "Frank? I _knew_ it! I _knew_- well… I didn't really, but I just felt like _something was different! _Did something happen over the summer?"

She meets my eyes, and I can see that she is torn between overwhelm, stress, and pleasure at my clamor. She takes in a little breath, her eyes darting glassily around the grounds behind me, and when she meets my gaze, her blue irises are covered in a sparkling sheen. I feel my face stretch into a look of surprise, feel an arm go out automatically to catch her hand.

"Yes, well, _no_," she bites her lip and lets out something between a laugh and a sob, "I don't _know!_ _Everything_ happened over the summer! -yet.. nothing at all, really."

I nod in understanding, though it's really more a confirmation that I _heard_ her words, because I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about.

"Okay…" I begin, wondering how to give comfort on this mystifying lead. "Did something happen to make _you_… see things differently?"

Alice is chewing on her bottom lip now, her eyes moving rapidly over the fresh grass, and I can only imagine the memories she is whizzing through in that formidable mind of hers,

"It wasn't anything specific, really," she says slowly, her voice a soft smile that is new to my ears, "all of a sudden it was just… everything. He arrived to stay with us for the second half of the summer, before his training started officially, and when he walked in it was like… he was someone new to me already."

She pauses, breathing steadily, and I find myself fighting my own insane feelings; find myself diving eagerly into her dreamy state as though I can live through it. The stage is set. Frank Longbottom, her brother Craig's best friend since birth, has stayed with Alice's family for parts of the summer for as long as I can remember. Apparently his mother is… intense. Not in a bad way, I gather, just in the 'I _cannot_ spend more than three weeks at home' sort of way. As Alice is only a year younger than Craig and Frank, she has always tagged along with their escapades, and has written to me in great detail about the debauchery they cause.

But this summer I could feel something funny in the way she described their adventures. Frank's name was injected into the stories with what I now realized, wanting to smack myself in the head, was giddy revelry. It wasn't just '_so Frank crouched down in the bushes, while Craig hid behind the tree, and I went out to the road, to act as a distraction, you know,'_ as it had been in the past. Suddenly her scrawl had been filled with blind excitement.

'_When I woke up today I met Frank in the hallway, and he told me I looked like Shirley Temple in the mornings- she's a muggle isn't she? What did that mean?' _

'_Tonight at dinner Frank told the most amazing story about his trip to Paris. He met a Banshee out at a bar, and apparently she wanted to pay him to come back to her room with her! Can you believe that? I mean, I suppose I can, but a banshee! When he said no, she screamed and screamed, and nearly paralyzed half the wizards around them. He said-'_

I want to kick myself.

Perhaps I _am_ just a _really_ selfish person! Is this the cruel lesson of the past week after all? How could I not have seen_ immediately_ that Alice's summer was pretty much _entirely_ filled up by tales of Frank Longbottom?!

"- and I just have this feeling in my heart, I _miss_ him. More than I miss my parents or Craig," she looks at me guiltily and I can't help but grin, "and I just can't stop thinking about the silliest things, like how he looked at me _once_ out of about a thousand moments that made up our summer, when I was in my bathing suit-"

"Oooer," I say, nudging her in the waist. She shoots quelling eyes at me, but they're filled with excitement so I don't feel too bad.

"- and how he kept opening doors for me, and how he stays up late reading in the living room, and brushes his teeth about five times in the morning-"

"- sorry, _what_?" I laugh.

"- but at the same time, I know that I'm practically his little _sister_, and he could _never_ think of me that way." She turns hopeless eyes on me, "Lily, I don't know what to do."

I search her eyes curiously, still churning with shock and that feeling of finally putting together a puzzle that has been in the back of your mind for months. I'm surprised at the genuine level of emotion I find looking back at me, and I reach out to take her hands.

"You don't know that," I say softly, "he's practically _your_ brother, but your feelings have changed. Who's to say his can't as well. Did you talk to him?"

She shakes her head quickly, that familiar shy flush creeping into the apples of her cheeks.

"Well. Perhaps you should write to him," I egg on. She looks up, looking frustrated as a bullied kitten. I smile.

"I can't do that," she grumbles, and then she shoots me a look out of the corner of her eye, "_you_ know how it is- overcoming your pride. I can't just _tell_ him. It's been years of things being the completely opposite way of how I want them to be. I can't."

_It's been years of things being the completely opposite way. YOU know how it is._

I blanch. I guess I have been found out after all. A soft breeze picks up on the grounds, touching our faces and prodding at the moment of silence that fell between us. I let it be carried away,

"What do you mean, 'I know how it is'?" I ask cautiously. I never cease to underestimate Alice's powers of observation.

"James Potter," she says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, and my insides clench. She pushes me, her little hand hardly noticeable on my arm, "oh, come on, Lily, if you try to deny it to _me_, I will be very angry with you. I can _see_ you, you know. You have been a stranger all week, and I know it's because James Potter has… moved on."

Her final two words make my heart race forward, like a runner in the final stretch. I make an ambiguous noise in my throat and watch a sparrow scoop up a mouthful of water from the lake.

"Sorry," she says, turning to face me at the change in my demeanor, "I didn't mean to be blunt. I just wish you wouldn't be so stubborn- at least not with _me_."

I repeat the noise and she sighs, falling back into stride with me.

"What are you going to do about that?" she asks, and I'm not sure what she means. Something about James Potter, no doubt.

"I don't know," I say glumly, "I don't know what's wrong with me."

She sighs again, and wraps an arm around my waist as we stroll, leaning her head against my shoulder. Her hair smells of cherry blossoms and baby powder. "Here, here," she sings morosely. I smile.

And we walk like that for a long while. Both trying to figure out the mess of confusion in our hearts and minds, comforted by the peaceful haven of the grounds, and the fact that we are not alone in our predicaments.


End file.
